In Few Words
by Bil
Summary: John's always been a man of few words, after all. A collection of stories precisely 55 words long. No more, no less. It's a whole lot more difficult than it looks! Predominantly John- and Elizabeth-centric, some sparky.
1. Chapter 1

**In Few Words: 55-Word Stories  
**by Bil!

Disclaimer: The characters, situations, and universe are not of my creation. I'm just having fun playing with them.

Summary: The challenge is to write a story that is precisely 55 words long. No more, no less. It's a whole lot more difficult than it looks!

A/N: Episode-based stories are labelled with the relevant episode in brackets. There are spoilers for episodes from the first to fourth seasons so far. There is no order to these, and they come in a vast variety of flavours, including humour, angst, and romance. Mostly they focus on John and/or Elizabeth and there are plenty of Sparky ones. I'll post them in groups of six, since they are _far_ too short to make chapters on their own!

* * *

**Converted **(_Conversion_)

Blue skin and yellow eyes fill her vision. A hand wraps around her throat, fingers tightening as she gasps for air. Glass shatters, silver shards. A strange scent, cold and musty, fills her nose.

Elizabeth wakes screaming.

Come morning she smiles and speaks as if nothing is wrong. Come night time, she knows everything is.

.

* * *

**Commonality** (_Common Ground_)

He dreams of family, of trust and loyalty and love. Of pride in his sister, love for his brothers. He will fight the universe for them and regret nothing.

In his dreams his family wears the face of his enemy.

John wakes. And wonders just what the Wraith gave to him along with his life.

.

* * *

**Unreal World **(_The Real World_)

When did the world she grew up in become no longer normal? When did stained-glass windows and alien technologies become her every-day reality? How could a _dream_ leave her so utterly unconnected to the 'real world'?

Elizabeth can't believe Atlantis isn't real. Not when its mere memory has more substance than here.

Atlantis is real.

.

* * *

**Twenty-Four Hours Later **(_Thirty-Eight Minutes_)

"What were you really going to say?" Elizabeth lounges on the end of his infirmary bed, watches him eat his smuggled-in Jello.

The Jello melts on his tongue as lights dance in her eyes. "Does it matter?" he asks.

Her smile is slow and deep. "I suppose not."

John never wants to leave this moment.

.

* * *

**Blue** (_Siege III_ – Colonel Everett)

He dreams in blue. Blue wormhole, blue city, blue sea, blue sky. Blue face laughing at him, blue hand drinking his life. Blue, blue, blue, blue.

He drowns and chokes and soaks in it, all blue, so blue, too blue. Blue is life and death and draining, drowning weakness.

When he wakes, Dillon is old.

.

* * *

**After Trinity **(_Trinity_)

John doesn't talk about what happened. But Elizabeth knows he trusted Rodney and that trust was... not betrayed, but bent. And John's trust has been betrayed too many times, John's trust is fragile. She knows that.

Still, he won't talk about it.

But in his sleep he holds onto her as if she might disappear.


	2. Chapter 2

**In Few Words**

John had always been a man of action, not words. So when he knew what he wanted he didn't make long, elaborate, and persuasive speeches. He just acted.

Elizabeth lifted her hand to her lips, wide-eyed. "What was that for?"

He shrugged. "I love you."

Apparently there were situations where Elizabeth also used few words.

.

* * *

**Without A Lifeline** (_Lifeline_)

Atlantis gleams in the morning sun as Sam steps into the controlroom. And she stops, looking out onto the balcony. "He's out there again?"

The tech looks up and follows her eyes. "Again?" He shakes his head, eyes solemn. "He's been there all night."

John Sheppard stands on the balcony where she left him, alone.

.

* * *

**Glass Walls**

He's never had to figure out a relationship in public view before. The walls have ears and eyes and there are no secrets in Atlantis's halls, where a snatched moment alone is a triumph.

This is the hardest relationship he's ever been in.

But Elizabeth smiles at him and John knows it's all worth it.

.

* * *

**Sunshine**

Of all weathers, John likes sunshine best. He likes the way the light glitters on Atlantis's spires and towers, the way it sparkles on the water and leaps across the wave tops on sparkling feet, filling the air with bright warm light.

But mostly he likes the way it glimmers and dances in Elizabeth's hair.

.

* * *

**Sleepy**

Her hair is fine and soft, tickling his neck, the scent of her sweet and familiar. Her head leaning on his shoulder is light, and the long, fine lashes of her sleep-closed eyes curve in smiles like the curve of her lips as she dreams. John's heart swells with pure love for her.

His daughter.

.

* * *

**Galileo**

He told them the truths they didn't want to hear and so they dragged him out of the skies. He could have changed their world, widened their horizons, added to their existence, but they refused to listen.

And when he wouldn't recant they took his heart from him and buried him frozen in the white.


	3. Chapter 3

**Wisdom**

When John was younger he would have argued. He would have done his best to try and change Elizabeth's mind, to point out the flaws in her position and convince her to acknowledge his point.

But all that was when he was younger; John is no longer that foolish.

All he says is: "Yes, dear."

* * *

**Such A Guy**

Elizabeth wears a necklace, silver and gleaming, that hangs in a perfect V from her neck and shimmers in the light as he watches it.

"I like your necklace," John tells her, and she laughs because she knows the secret.

When a guy looks at a woman's necklace, it's not her _necklace_ he's looking at.

* * *

**Alien**

She freely mouths any words that make them accept her, for they are the only ones who can fight the Wraith, who won't turn the Athosians into slaves. Teyla will do anything, even sell out her beliefs, to protect her people.

The sad thing is that the Atlanteans truly believe she thinks as they do.

* * *

**Grief**

John storms around his quarters, throwing things on the floor, smashing lamps, overturning the bed, as if the messier his room is the less his heart will feel. He rages, rages, rages.

Elizabeth finds him in the wreckage and says nothing, only takes him in her arms.

Where, finally, he weeps and is human again.

* * *

**Me Against the World **(post-_Siege_)

Ford hates the Atlanteans. How could they give up on him now? Why did they refuse to accept this wonderful thing that's happening to him? He _hates_ them, with all the strength of one who loves.

Because he loves them, misses them, longs for them.

But mostly he hates them. Oh how he hates them.

* * *

**Antidepressant**

"Can't you summon up a _little_ bit of optimism?" John demanded of McKay, exasperated. "I mean, I'm not asking for a huge change here. Even just a 'we're gonna get horribly and terribly injured' instead of a 'we're all gonna die'."

McKay gave him a dark look.

"What? It's depressing, the way you go on."


	4. Chapter 4

**In Few Words: Drabbles**

by Bil!

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

A/N: And now for something slightly longer. But not by much. The following are drabbles, each precisely 100 words long. (I know some people seem to define 'drabble' as being just a very short story, but when I was introduced to the concept a drabble was always a story that was 100 words.)

* * *

**Thievery**

John dug through his drawer, annoyed. Then pulled it out and up-turned it, distributing its contents across the floor. Still nothing.

He dropped the empty drawer on his bed, waded through the mess to the door, and stormed out.

/\

"Elizabeth!"

She looked up innocently as he stormed into her quarters. "Yes, John?"

"Give them back. Now."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're a thief and you know it!"

"Me?" Elizabeth could ooze innocence when she wanted to.

He glared at her. And then at her feet, warmly covered in thick merino-and-possum socks. "Would you stop stealing my socks!"

* * *

**House of Horror**

She only has to turn her back for half an hour. _Half an hour_. That's how long she was locked away in her office in video-link conference with the higher-ups back on Earth. And now she's come out to find that _someone _has turned her gateroom into the set of _Return of the Living Dead_and taught the Athosian kids all the most gruesome ways to look like zombies, vampires, and ghouls. Kids are 'dying' artistically all over the place. She sighs, steps around a realistically blood-soaked Jinto, and heads off to find the most childish kid of all.

"John!"

* * *

**Outrageous **(_Rising_)

"Let's cancel the wedding preparations and just elope."

She looked up, startled, from within her fortress of boxes and John grinned at having finally rattled the unflappable Doctor Weir. "I beg your pardon?"

He took pity on her. "I'm just saying it'd be easier to forget all this and head straight through the wormhole." He leaned on a stack of the boxes she was checking for pre-departure.

She laughed. "That may be, Major, but I prefer some careful planning for this Expedition. If that's quite all right with you."

John shrugged. "Hey, you're the boss."

She smiled. "That I am."

* * *

**Devil in the Dark **(_Common Ground_)

Have you dreamed, in the darkness? I have dreamed, dreamed for lifetimes longer than yours, waiting, waiting, waiting. Do you know what it is to hunger, to hunger so that the hunger is no longer a part of you but a separate being, a parasite consuming you from inside out?

What do you see, tiny creature looking at me with fear? Do you know that your fear strengthens me, intoxicates me? I long for the taste of it, I long to reach out and take it from you.

Do you know what it is to wait, empty, alone?

To hunger.


End file.
